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1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to dollies, carriers, land vehicles, mobile racks, etc. for use in manually loading, transporting, and unloading objects presenting bulk, weight, size, and/or other constraints, such as pickup truck toppers or shells, building material, elongated members, etc.
2. Description of Prior Art
This invention addresses needs and problems associated with manually loading and/or unloading and transporting items or objects that are large and bulky, such as, pickup truck toppers or shells, sheets of building material, pipe, etc., by person(s) at home or job site.
Owners of pickup trucks with toppers or camper shells must remove them to use their pickup truck beds for loads not convenient or possible with the toppers or shells on, or arrange to handle the loads another way, thereby forfeiting the versatility of their pickup trucks. To remove a conventional topper or shell from atop a pickup truck bed, two or more persons both lift and slide it off the truck and carry it to a place for interim storage. When ready to reinstall it, the reverse is done. Some problems associated with this are: finding and scheduling, both for removal and for reinstallation, two or more persons able to lift and carry, possible physical strain or injury to persons lifting and carrying, possible damage to shell or truck if dropped, and inconvenient storage. These problems exist not only for owners but for those selling, repairing, and/or modifying pickup truck toppers or shells. Prior art recognizes the need to remove toppers and offers alterations to the toppers or shells, such as, added wheels and/or legs, and slide mounts to assist in removal. Also in an attempt to avoid removal for certain loads, some additions provide for raising the toppers to some portion or degree.
At home or job site, unloading pickup trucks or other like vehicles, loaded with sheets of building material, lumber, bags of concrete mix, pipe, etc., also involves lifting and setting down on a dolly type vehicle, if available, or else carrying by hand to storage or work site. The process is repeated until the vehicle is unloaded. If the storage is interim, the material must be moved or handled again to take to the work site.
At construction sites, material, such as pipe, must be moved to fabrication work areas. Often pipe is carried by hand. One method involves multiple persons lifting pipe onto a two wheeled carrier in a manner that the weight of the pipe will be balanced. Then one person bends over to grasp the handles of the carrier, balances the heavy load, and maintains load balance while pushing the carrier to the fabrication area. The persons loading or person pushing the vehicle can experience physical back strain and damage, which can result in loss of livelihood.
Whether at home, job site, construction site, wholesaler, retailer, or elsewhere, problems associated with manually lifting and transporting objects or articles presenting bulk, weight, size, and/or other constraints are common. Problems identified are:
(1) possible physical strain or injury to persons lifting and carrying, which may result in loss to the persons, including livelihood, but also loss to employers and contractors in experience and resources to complete a job on time plus loss to those expecting the job to be done at a certain time.
(2) possible damage to material if dropped while hand carried or ported on inadequate vehicle.
(3) interim storage not available on the transporting device requiring additional lifting and carrying from storage to work area, repeating to work areas, to final installation or use.
(4) more resources required in personnel or time or both resulting in increased costs.
(5) equipment not available or feasible at the destination site for unloading and transfer, such as home, field, job site, or construction site requiring more manual handling.
It is therefore highly desirable to provide a device of manual transporting large objects and loads:
(a) which provides means for supporting a variety of load configurations (pipe, lumber, paneling, sheet material, equipment, pickup truck topper or camper shell, etc.) at a selected height relative to a horizontal plane, with locking capabilities, and easily movable with or without a load in place.
(b) which provides an alternative means especially for supporting elongated members loads, such as pipes, beams, rails, and the like.
(c) which provides a stable platform of strong construction material supporting the weight of the load configurations safely.
(d) which provides means to reduce possible physical strain and injury to material handlers with subsequent losses to selves, employers, contractors, and the like.
(e) which provides means of efficiencies in loading and offloading load configurations to reduce the number of personnel and/or time required.
(f) which is readily movable and maneuverable by an individual person.
(g) which provides means of interim storage or workstation.
(h) which provides easy installation and knockdown.
(i) which provides means simplifying functioning parts and using readily available materials at a reasonable cost to manufacture.
Therefore the objects and advantages of the present invention to provide a device of manual transporting large objects and loads are:
(a) to provide means for supporting a variety of load configurations (pipe, lumber, paneling, sheet material, equipment, pickup truck topper or camper shell, etc.) at a selected height relative to a horizontal plane, with locking capabilities, and easily movable with or without a load in place.
(b) to provide an alternative means especially for supporting elongated members loads, such as pipes, beams, rails, and the like.
(c) to provide a stable platform of strong construction material supporting the weight of the load configurations safely.
(d) to provide means to reduce possible physical strain and injury to material handlers with subsequent losses to selves, employers, contractors, and the like.
(e) to provide means of efficiencies in loading and offloading load configurations to reduce the number of personnel and/or time required.
(f) to provide means readily movable and maneuverable by an individual person.
(g) to provide means of interim storage or workstation.
(h) to provide easy installation and knockdown.
(i) to provide means simplifying functioning parts and using readily available materials at a reasonable cost to manufacture.
These objectives and advantages are obtained by the present invention of the device of manual transporting large objects and loads. To attain these, the present invention is comprised of a platform having a base frame of a pair of longitudinal side members, a pair of transverse end members, and a plurality of crossbars, joined to side members parallel to end members. The frame has a plurality of rollers attached to the top of it on end members and crossbars. The frame is joined and supported on a plurality of vertically telescoping, lockable, wheeled legs having hand winches attached.
In the alternative means especially for supporting elongated member loads, the device of the present invention is configured for suspending the load under the frame instead of on it. Rollers are omitted from the frame to which a longitudinal beam and a plurality of beam supports are added. An added mechanism operates all of the hand winches from any one winch. A load is secured to the device by positioning it over the load, placing chains under each end of the load, and hooking the ends of the chains to the sliding chain brackets at each end of the beam.
These and other objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the invention in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the invention that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.